ATC phraseology standard on VATSIM

[Alistair Thomson]

I've recently started looking at Euroscope, and living in Canada now, I also have Canscope installed. I've spent a little time observing Toronto activity and as a RW flying instructor from the UK I was impressed by the quality of Vatsim ATC there. Dor Bashan in particular was very precise and coherent (both as pilot and ATC), obeying all the phraseology rules very nicely. I'm sure that there are many others In VatCan who also do the job properly, but I haven't listened in enough yet to confirm that.

However, when I went on to RW Toronto using liveatc to see how the pros do it, I quickly discovered that, well, sorry, but RW ATC at Toronto could learn a thing or two from the Vatsim guys.

Sloppy isn't the word for it. One guy in the GND position simply rode roughshod over the IFR Phraseology document from Nav Canada, which is the ATC Bible in Canada and is equivalent to CAP413 in the UK. His favourite ploy was to repeatedly omit the leading "one" from a frequency change notification, as well as the "decimal" separator, and then also ignored the digit readout phraseology. So "one one eight decimal three five" became "eighteen thirty-five" which obviously can be read as a time, or maybe a squawk, but NOT as a frequency, crashing through the deliberately precise disambiguity built in to the official document.

And when that ATC officer passed the "eighteen thirty-five" instruction, every RW  pilot read that back verbatim. Are things so rushed in RW that folks simply are unable to get out what appears to them to be overly verbose instructions? Or are they just lazy? My RW experience tells me that it is not the former.

I was shocked. Maybe it's just me. But maybe Vatsim folks actually care more about realism than the real guys.

[Andreas Fuchs]

Hi Alistair,

welcome to the real world 😉 At VATSIM we sometimes over-simulate things, we take them too serious. In the US it is rather common that tower will tell you to "contact ground point niner": that is "contact ground on 121.9". But since everyone is used to it, it's not a problem. Now, the really interesting thing is that I learned this on VATSIM before my first real flight to the US and sure enough, after landing in Washington Dulles, tower ATC told us to "contact ground point niner": big question mark on the face of my first officer, but luckily I remembered this and we did not have to ask for it.

Then again: when I fly at my real job, I am rather precise. When I fly recreational, I take it a bit easier (where there's no risk to mess up critical things) and that's true for my flights and ATC-sessions on VATSIM.

Edited June 25, 2020 at 03:25 PM by Andreas Fuchs
missing word

[Trevor Hannant]

US controllers and pilots RW do more often than not drop the 1 from a frequency.  So in addition to what Andreas says, it's the norm to hear "contact tower on 22.5" etc.

[Brad Littlejohn]

18 hours ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

Hi Alistair,

welcome to the real world 😉 At VATSIM we sometimes over-simulate things, we take them too serious. In the US it is rather common that tower will tell you to "contact ground point niner": that is "contact ground on 121.9". But since everyone is used to it, it's not a problem. Now, the really interesting thing is that I learned this on VATSIM before my first real flight to the US and sure enough, after landing in Washington Dulles, tower ATC told us to "contact ground point niner": big question mark on the face of my first officer, but luckily I remembered this and we did not have to ask for it.

Then again: when I fly at my real job, I am rather precise. When I fly recreational, I take it a bit easier (where there's no risk to mess up critical things) and that's true for my flights and ATC-sessions on VATSIM.

 

Just to be clear on this so we don't have any confusion, there is a reason we drop "121" from the ground control frequency, let alone the ground control frequency altogether when we hand you over to Ground: we have to; the Bible says so. 😄 From the 7110.65, 2-1-17 (bold for emphasis):

 

Quote

 

2.1.17. RADIO COMMUNICATIONS

b. Transfer radio communications by specifying the following:

1. The facility name or location name and terminal function to be contacted. TERMINAL: Omit the location name when transferring communications to another controller within your facility, or, when the tower and TRACON share the same name (for example, Phoenix Tower and Phoenix TRACON).
2. Frequency to use except the following may be omitted:
      a. FSS Frequency.
      b. Departure frequency if previously given or published on a SID chart for the procedure issued.
      c. TERMINAL:
         1. Ground or local control frequency if in your opinion the pilot knows which frequency is in use.
         2. The numbers preceding the decimal point if the ground control frequency is in the 121 MHz bandwidth.

 

 

So unless the Ground frequency is not in the 121 MHz bandwidth, we don't need to specify 121 when handing off the aircraft to ground. Now, there are very few airports where we have that exception. San Diego is one of them, KHHR (Hawthorne, just east of LAX) is another. Those would be the exception to the norm.

Additionally, if there is only one ground controller frequency for the entire airport, you don't even need to specify the frequency, as it is already identified on the Airport Diagram for the airport in question. So in some cases, only a simple "Contact Ground" or "Monitor Ground" is needed.

 

BL.

 

Edited June 25, 2020 at 05:11 PM by Brad Littlejohn
code cleanup

[Alistair Thomson]

3 hours ago, Brad Littlejohn said:

So unless the Ground frequency is not in the 121 MHz bandwidth, we don't need to specify 121

Thanks Andreas and Brad. Very interesting. Brad, your info is from the US bible, so I tried to find similar exceptions in the Canadian publication, but failed. The folks at CYYZ RW may be able to use similar abbreviations but I can't see where that is acknowledged in the docs. There is no such exception in the UK. Indeed, a UK controller reading out a frequency like that would likely be taken out behind the tower and shot. :) Different worlds, different emphases.

Edited June 25, 2020 at 08:36 PM by Alistair Thomson

[Andreas Fuchs]

13 hours ago, Alistair Thomson said:

a UK controller reading out a frequency like that would likely be taken out behind the tower and shot

but only if the executioners wear proper hi-viz gear 😄

[Alistair Thomson]

:)

[William Teale]

On 6/26/2020 at 1:05 AM, Brad Littlejohn said:

Just to be clear on this so we don't have any confusion, there is a reason we drop "121" from the ground control frequency, let alone the ground control frequency altogether when we hand you over to Ground: we have to; the Bible says so. 😄

Your quote doesnt support your claim, though. Your quote says that you may drop the frequency, not that you have to.

[Mike Lehkamp]

On 6/26/2020 at 11:03 PM, William Teale said:

Your quote doesnt support your claim, though. Your quote says that you may drop the frequency, not that you have to.

Huh? 😵

[Andreas Fuchs]

2 hours ago, Mike Lehkamp said:

Huh? 😵

Quote

c. TERMINAL:
      1. Ground or local control frequency if in your opinion the pilot knows which frequency is in use.
      2. The numbers preceding the decimal point if the ground control frequency is in the 121 MHz bandwidth.

 

[William Teale]

On 6/28/2020 at 4:14 PM, Mike Lehkamp said:

Huh? 😵

In response to the claim that an action is required, with provided quote supporting that argument; the response that the action is optional, not required, and that the quote provided proves so.

That in particular, for locations using the .65 as their radio standard, that they have the option to shorten particular frequency transfer instructions, but are by no means required to do so. This would be different from being required to shorten those instructions.

Then you have the Land Downunder, where we just omit those transfer instructions anyway and expect you to contact ground of your own accord. ...unless you are an international flight. Those foreigners do require some hand-holding to get where they need to go!

[Andreas Fuchs]

Automatic frequency changes are as well normal in the US and at certain airports in Europe - airport charts mention this here in Europe, for example in Amsterdam.